Picture
by alaira
Summary: "Amy laughed at the absurdity of it – that both of her lovers had brought her the same picture in the space of twenty-four hours." AmyJosh and AmyDonna. Beacuse I'm insane...


TITLE: Picture  
  
PAIRING: Josh & Amy, Donna & Amy  
  
RATING: PG  
  
SPOILERS: Anything with Amy. written after Commencement, but nothing explicit for anything past Posse Comitatus.  
  
FEEDBACK: Is delightful and delicious, and can be directed to alaira238@hotmail.com, or posted at ff.net  
  
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Comes from being really, really tired and seeing some strange Amy/Donna vibes in Commencement. Though it's set far before that. Posting this in hopes someone else saw the subtext too, and wanted to read more.  
  
DISCLAIMING: I am not Aaron Sorking, Thomas Schlamme (if I were, I certainly wouldn't be leaving these characters!), nor am I John Wells. So, I have no ownership whatsoever on these characters. Also, I don't have much money, so suing me over this would be not such a profitable idea.  
  
~~~***~~~  
  
Picture  
  
Amy has a picture sitting on the table in her bedroom. There's another copy of it in a drawer of an end table in her living room. It's a spectacular picture, taken by a White House photographer a few weeks before she lost her job and broke up with Josh.  
  
It is a picture of her and Josh, and yet it isn't - which is to say that they're in it together, but there are other people too. There's her, almost squinting at a polling sheet over her glasses, and Josh, standing slightly behind her, reading over her left shoulder with his hand on her waist. There is Joey Lucas, and her interpreter; Amy thinks his name was Kevin. Maybe it was Kenny, she doesn't remember; he was only there that one night. Joey was running the poll, she remembers, and kept giving Amy strange looks. CJ Cregg's in the picture also holding a poll sheet, on Josh's other side, and somewhere in the background, Leo McGarry is talking to Toby Zeigler. But none of this is what makes the picture spectacular.  
  
What makes the picture spectacular is the woman seated to the right of where Amy is standing. What makes the picture spectacular is that in it, clear as day, Amy's fingers are resting lightly on hers. They are almost intertwined, her fingers with this other woman's, it almost looks like they're holding hands. The first time she saw this picture, her eyes grew wide, and she wanted to find the photographer who had taken it. She wanted to offer him something - money, sex, whatever - for the picture. But she didn't, because that would draw attention to it, and attention was exactly what she didn't want.  
  
The day after she first saw it, Josh brought her a copy of the picture. He said he thought they looked good in it, he wanted her to remember that night. She smiled, thanking him with a kiss, and put it on the table in her bedroom. She was almost sure he hadn't noticed the proximity of her hand with his assistant's, or if he did, he didn't say anything about it. If he saw it, he probably thought it was nothing. Maybe Donna thought it was nothing too.  
  
But she didn't, because the next night she came to Amy's apartment with a copy of the same picture. And Donna laughed over how blatant it was, how obvious, and yet people didn't notice. And Amy laughed too, though not for the same reasons.  
  
Amy laughed at the absurdity of it - that both of her lovers had brought her the same picture in the space of twenty-four hours. She laughed because in the picture, she looked content. She didn't look like a woman who was torn, who was deceiving one, and self-destructively needing another. Looking at the picture, with Donna over a box of Ben and Jerry's, and Josh the night before over a bottle of wine, she felt torn, and it was truly, absurd.  
  
Donna said maybe they'd have to be more careful, but her eyes twinkled mischievously when she said it. Amy took this to mean she really thought they should see how much further they could push this particular envelope, before someone noticed.  
  
Amy told herself; next time we'll be more careful, this cannot happen again. She said it firmly in her head, as though that would somehow make it more likely to be true. But she didn't think it would, she didn't think they would be more careful. With Donna, there was no such thing as careful. And she knew it would happen again.  
~~~***~~~  
  
Feedback, feedback please, feedback pretty please! Someone else out there has to wonder about this pairing. or else I've strayed pretty far from the pack. send me your thoughts at alaira238@hotmail.com, or use the button below. ^^ 


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